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Tag Archives: Dear White People

We live in time of perpetual outrage. From the perspective of the Conservative Right, the anger is often articulated in Daily Mail headlines with capitalised words to emphasise just how OUTRAGEOUS ‘it’ is (whatever ‘it’ is). For Liberal Lefties, taking to the streets waving placards and chanting, is how their indignation is expressed. It is not surprising then, that the announcement of the new Netflix series “Dear White People” was going to enrage some people.

Based on the film of the same name that came out in 2014, the release of the trailer for the show sparked the type of outrage that causes people to take to twitter and start furiously hash-tagging, and threatening a boycott. On this occasion, it seems it is the Conservative White America that has been especially offended, or “triggered”, to adopt an internet phrase. According to the Daily Mail article reporting that the Youtube video of the trailer attracted one million dislikes in one day, the outrage is justified. Having perused the comments section of this article (my go-to when I want to understand the way in which racist people think), it seems nobody really knows what the show is about, but it must be racist against whites because, “you couldn’t get away with a show called ‘Dear BLACK people’ could you?!?”

I find all of this very amusing. Firstly, because when the film version came out in 2014, I do not recall this amount of anger being expressed. In fact, to me, the film trailer seemed very enticing at the time. It seemed a straightforward plot – a black(ish) looking girl using her radio station slot to directly address the micro-aggressions that many black people encounter when interacting with white people on a daily basis. In fact if I recall correctly, the film was made as a response to a real life incident that occurred at an Ivy League university when white students attended a Halloween party dressed in black face as a costume. As I understand it, this type of thing has been reported numerous times across America. I was intrigued then, that it seemed a mainstream film had been made to address this type of ignorant behaviour, and challenge the stereotypes of black people that are so often propagated by the media. When I eventually watched the film, I discovered I was very wrong. Dear White People was ironically slightly racist… to black people. In what can be best described as an own goal, the casting and writing of the film has many stereotypes that are negative as far as black people are concerned. Here are just a few:

Stereotype 1: Only a light skinned/mixed race woman can play a leading role.

The storyline in Dear White People has a convenient “twist” that allows for casting a mixed race woman as the leading role, as is it later revealed that she is actually not “fully black” as she has a white father, despite being so “militant”.

Stereotype 2: Black people, and especially black people who are concerned about racial injustice, are always angry.

In the film, there is an angry black mob, none of whom have any speaking lines, and only serve the purpose to appear every now and then, looking furious and staring black raging daggers at people.

Stereotype 3: Even in a so-called “black film”, a white character must always be the hero.

The Light-Skinned Leading Lady (I cannot remember any of the characters names, and I cannot be bothered to look them up), has a secret White Boyfriend, who sticks by her even though she treats him like dirt, and is ashamed on him. Both she, and all the other characters in the film seem to have deep flaws. Supporting Dark-Skinned Female character is very unlikeable, as is the Leading Black Male character. The Black Gay character is written as complete wimp. The only character that comes out shining and smelling of roses, is the secret White Boyfriend, who in the end, Light-Skinned Leading Lady chooses over her other love interest, Brutish Black Man.

If the Netflix mini-series is going to be just like the film, then I agree; it is racist. However, to suggest it is racist towards white people is a bit ridiculous. To address the suggestion that it would not be ok to have a TV show called “Dear Black People”; such a title suggests that the show would be written from a mainly white perspective addressing certain behaviours of black people that make white people feel oppressed. The problem with that is, virtually every show on TV already is written from a white perspective, and given that in the US and UK, black people are a minority, it is difficult to see how white people in these countries could feel so oppressed by their behaviour.

I will not be watching the Netflix series because I thought the film was pretty rubbish, but I have no feelings of fury about it. My suggestion to Spitting Mad Conservative White America, is to stop the internet whinging and threats of boycotts, and do the common sense thing whenever something you do not like is on TV or online: simply, do not watch.